The Man Who Laughs

The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928) Silent film produced by Universal of the Victor Hugo novel that, in this incarnation, inspired two, maybe three kids working in comics (Bill Finger and Robert Kahn, and Jerry Robinson) to create Batman's Moriarty, The Joker.

Conrad Veidt plays Gwynplaine, the child of a dissident noble, Lord Clancharlie, who is sentenced to death by King James II for his activism against the King. Following his father's execution, to teach the boy to not follow in his path, his face is carved into a hideous smile, An orphan, he and the blind child Dea are taken in by Ursus, an itinerate con-man, until he is cast off to make a wretched existence as a clown in a travelling show. Billed in the carny as "The Laughing Man," Gwynplaine has the ability to make any local rabble laugh at his ghoulishly smiling face. What makes him stay is the love of the blind girl he rescued in the snow, and his own disgust at his ravaged face, which, of course, she cannot see.

As bad as it is, though, it is tolerable. But, what goes around comes around. His past—and his peerage—comes back to haunt him as the circus approaches the lands of the Clancharlie family. At one show, he has the same horrified, bellicose reaction that has become his goal instead of his curse, that he only notices his lack of success: an evil countess (Olga Baklanova) who he encounters in his old home town. This leads to problems with his love, as his heart is torn between the woman who's never seen his face, or the one who's intrigued with him despite his affliction.

The fact that, unbeknownst to him, she's living on his lost estate complicates things even further...especially as he must reclaim his title if he he is to make the countess secure in her current comfortable state of living.

It's high melodrama of the most "melo", and Leni crafts it with an artists' eye for lighting from the German Expressionist style, and a trickster's way with camera movement. It's far more subtle than most films of the silent era, while glorying in the dramatic gestures of the time, and makes for a compelling fusion of the German and American film sensibilities and of the drama, comedy, swashbuckler and horror genres.